Greek Salad Dressing: Olive Oil, Vinegar & Rigani
A classic Greek salad dressing is four things: extra virgin olive oil, red wine vinegar, dried Greek oregano and salt, in roughly three parts oil to one of vinegar. In Greece it is barely a dressing at all — a horiatiki is dressed in the bowl, oil poured straight over the vegetables, vinegar splashed after — and this page gives both that tradition and a whisked, spoonable version for everything else, plus ladolemono, the lemon variant that dresses grilled fish and greens.
Plate I · IllustrationRecord
What actually dresses a horiatiki?
Less than you think, and not from a jar. A horiatiki — the village salad of tomatoes, cucumber, onion, green pepper, olives and a slab of feta — is dressed where it sits: extra virgin olive oil poured over the built salad, a short splash of red wine vinegar, salt, and dried oregano crumbled over the feta. Nothing is measured and nothing is whisked. Greek food writers are blunt on this point — an authentic horiatiki has no “dressing” in the bottled sense, the oil and vinegar go on separately at the table, and some households skip the vinegar and add only oil. The recipe published by Greece’s national tourism organisation keeps the same short list: salt, olive oil, vinegar and half a teaspoon of dried Greek oregano.
The reason is structural. A ripe tomato brings its own acid and its own juice, feta brings salt and fat, and raw onion brings bite — the salad seasons itself as it stands, and the oil’s job is to bind those juices rather than coat leaves. What collects at the bottom of the bowl — oil, tomato juice, brine, crumbs of feta — is the best part, and it is eaten, with bread. So the honest answer to “what is the recipe for Greek salad dressing” is: for a horiatiki, there isn’t one, and the method takes one sentence. The whisked recipe on this page exists for every other salad — leaves, grains, beans, roast vegetables — where a pre-mixed, spoonable dressing genuinely works better.
What are the right ratios?
Three to one, oil to acid, is the Greek baseline — noticeably oilier than a French vinaigrette, because there is no mustard or sweetener in the bowl and the oil itself is carrying the flavour. For four people: six tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, two of red wine vinegar, a teaspoon of dried rigani and a quarter-teaspoon of fine salt. The three dressings of the Greek table differ mainly in the acid and in how much you work them:
| Classic salad dressing (ladoxido) | Ladolemono | Honey vinaigrette (adapted) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acid | Red wine vinegar | Fresh lemon juice | Red wine vinegar |
| Oil to acid | 3:1 | 3:1, down to 2:1 for fish | 3:1, plus ½ tsp honey |
| Worked how | Stirred, or simply poured in sequence | Whisked hard until thick and cloudy | Whisked |
| Belongs on | Horiatiki, tomatoes, beans, grills | Grilled fish, horta, artichokes | Bitter leaves, roast roots |
| Traditional? | Yes | Yes | No — our adaptation |
Taste before you commit: vinegars vary more than oils, and a sharp one pushes the ratio to four to one.
Fig. I · The ratio, drawn to scaleDiagram
Three to one, oil to acid, is the Greek baseline — noticeably oilier than a French vinaigrette. Each line below is one dressing, divided to scale.
4 : 1A sharp vinegar
Start here and taste your way down — vinegars vary more than oils.
3 : 1The Greek baseline — this recipe
Six tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil to two of red wine vinegar — dresses a salad for four.
2 : 1Ladolemono, for oily fish
The acid is lemon, and for oily fish it sharpens towards two parts oil to one.
Plate II · PaintingRecord
Red wine vinegar or lemon?
Both are canonical; they just dress different things. Vinegar is the salad acid — it reads as savoury against tomato and onion, and it is what the village salad takes. Lemon is the fish acid: ladolemono, olive oil and lemon whisked with salt and oregano, is the sauce spooned over grilled fish, and the standard finish for horta, the wild and cultivated greens boiled and eaten warm across Greece. Greek cookery holds the two to be one idea with two acids — the oil-and-lemon and the oil-and-vinegar dressing are named as a pair, ladolemono and ladoxido — so the question is never which is correct, only what is on the plate. Cucumber-heavy salads and anything with feta lean vinegar; anything from the grill, and anything green and bitter, leans lemon.
Should you emulsify it?
Only when the dish needs it, and tradition mostly doesn’t. Oil and vinegar do not truly combine: whisking breaks the oil into droplets and turns the mix cloudy and briefly creamy, but with no mustard or egg to hold it — and the Greek versions use neither — it separates again within minutes. That is fine. For a horiatiki the ingredients go on in sequence and the tossing at the table does the mixing. For a jar dressing, twenty seconds with a fork just before pouring is enough. The one Greek dressing that is genuinely worked is ladolemono for fish: whisked hard, it thickens into an opaque, spoonable sauce, and cooks who make it often will tell you the vigour matters more than the ratio. If you want a dressing that holds an emulsion for days in the fridge, you are cooking something French, and that is a different page.
Which olive oil should you use?
A robust extra virgin, because a dressing is the rawest use an oil ever gets — nothing is cooked, nothing is diluted, and every character in the bottle lands on the fork. Greeks eat their oil raw as a matter of course, drizzled over vegetable and bean salads and boiled greens, and the oils of the southern Peloponnese and Crete — pressed predominantly from the Koroneiki olive — are built for exactly this: green, peppery, a little bitter, with the fresh-cut-grass edge that reads as seasoning in its own right. The pepper catch at the back of the throat is not a fault; it is the mark of a fresh, intact oil. Our guide to Kalamata olive oil covers what that name means and what sits behind it, and the olive oil section takes the category from the top. One rule of thumb worth keeping: save the most aromatic bottle you own for uses like this one, where it is never heated — what heat does and does not do to an oil is covered in cooking with extra virgin olive oil.
What about the oregano?
It must be dried, and it should be Greek. Rigani — dried Greek oregano, often sold still on the branch — is the one herb this dressing cannot lose, and dried is not a compromise: drying concentrates the resinous, savoury side of the herb, which is what stands up to vinegar and raw onion. Fresh oregano is a different, milder thing and disappears here. Crumble the rigani between your fingers as it goes in — the crushing releases the aroma — and keep a pinch back to finish the salad on top, where you can smell it.
How do you make it?
Stir the salt into the vinegar in a small bowl until it dissolves — salt will not dissolve in oil, so it must meet the acid first. Pour in the olive oil, add the oregano and a grind of pepper if you like it, and whisk with a fork for about twenty seconds, until cloudy. Dress the salad at the last moment and turn it once, gently; dressed early, tomato and cucumber weep and the whole bowl slackens. Any dressing left over keeps, covered, at cool room temperature for a day or two — the fridge will cloud and thicken the oil, which is harmless and reverses as it warms, but it costs you the pour.
And the traditional route, for a horiatiki, is shorter still: build the salad, pour the oil over generously, splash the vinegar, salt it, crumble the rigani over the feta, and put bread on the table for what gathers at the bottom.
Fig. II · In the bowl, and in the jarDiagram
In the bowlThe tradition — horiatiki
- Salad
Build it — a horiatiki is dressed where it sits.
- Oil
Poured straight over the vegetables, generously.
- Vinegar
A short splash, after the oil.
Some households skip it and add only the oil.
- Salt
Scattered over the top.
- Rigani
Crumbled between your fingers, over the feta.
Nothing measured, nothing whisked — and bread on the table for what gathers at the bottom.
In the jarThe whisked adaptation
- Salt · Vinegar
The salt into the vinegar first, stirred until it dissolves — salt will not dissolve in oil.
- Oil · Rigani
The oil poured in, the oregano added, pepper if you like it.
- Whisk
Twenty seconds with a fork, until cloudy.
It separates again as it stands; a quick stir brings it back.
- Dress
At the last moment, turned once, gently.
Dressed early, tomato and cucumber weep.
Spoonable — for leaf salads and anything that needs a pre-mixed dressing.
The order is the difference: in the bowl the oil goes on first and the vinegar after; in the jar the vinegar takes the salt before the oil is poured — and the whisk belongs to that route alone.
What are the variations?
Ladolemono. Swap the vinegar for the juice of half a lemon, keep the salt and oregano, and whisk harder — a good minute, until the sauce turns pale, thick and opaque. Spoon it over grilled fish the moment it comes off the heat, or over warm boiled greens. For oily fish, sharpen it towards two parts oil to one of lemon.
A honey vinaigrette. Half a teaspoon of honey stirred into the vinegar before the oil goes in, and the dressing turns to face bitter leaves — chicory, radicchio, rocket — and roast roots. A thyme honey keeps the accent Greek, and the pairing is older than it looks: Greek kitchens have been crossing olive oil and honey since the fried, honey-dressed doughs of antiquity, which live on in our loukoumades. Be clear about what this one is, though — an adaptation from our kitchen, not a Greek tradition. The village bowl is never sweetened.
Plate III · PhotographRecord
Where THYMELIA stands
THYMELIA is a UK house of Greek foods working two harvests — raw thyme honey from Chania in western Crete, and early-harvest olive oil from the hills above Kalamata — and the house is now writing its way through Greek olive oil with the same rules: composition and process, no shortcuts, starting at olive oil. There is no shop yet, and we name no date for one. How we source is at sourcing, what we will test and publish is at testing, and the reading behind it all — the research, taken one study at a time — is at evidence.
Recipe · Greek Salad Dressing: Olive Oil, Vinegar & RiganiCard
- Prep
- 10 min
- Total
- 10 min
- Makes
- Makes about 120ml — dresses a salad for 4
Ingredients
- 6 tbsp (90ml) extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
- 1 tsp dried Greek oregano (rigani), plus more to finish
- ¼ tsp fine sea salt
- Freshly ground black pepper (optional)
Method
- Dissolve the salt
Put the vinegar in a small bowl and stir in the salt until it disappears. Salt dissolves in vinegar and not in oil, so it goes into the acid first — add it after the oil and it stays gritty.
- Add the oil and rigani
Pour in the olive oil, add the oregano and a grind of pepper if using, and whisk with a fork for twenty seconds until the mix turns cloudy and loose. It will separate again as it stands; a quick stir brings it back.
- Dress at the last moment
Pour over the salad just before it goes to the table and turn everything once, gently. Dressed early, cucumber and tomato weep and the salad slackens; dressed late, the oil clings.
- Or dress in the bowl, the traditional way
Skip the whisking entirely. Build the salad, pour the olive oil over it generously, follow with a short splash of vinegar, then scatter the salt and crumble the rigani between your fingers over the top. Put bread on the table for the juices left in the bowl.
Asked, answered.
What is the ratio of oil to vinegar in a Greek salad dressing?
About three parts extra virgin olive oil to one part red wine vinegar — six tablespoons of oil to two of vinegar dresses a salad for four. Greek dressings run oilier than French ones, because the oil is doing the work of flavour and body rather than carrying mustard or sweeteners. If your vinegar is sharp, start at four to one and taste your way down.
Is a Greek salad traditionally dressed with a vinaigrette?
No. In Greece a horiatiki is dressed in the bowl: the olive oil is poured straight over the built salad, a little vinegar is splashed after it, and salt and dried oregano go over the top — nothing is whisked in a jar first, and some households add only the oil. The pool of oil, tomato juice and feta crumbs left at the bottom is not a mistake; it is eaten, with bread. The whisked version on this page is an adaptation for leaf salads and anything that needs a spoonable dressing.
What is ladolemono?
Ladolemono — also rendered latholemono — is the other classic Greek dressing: extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice, whisked with salt until thick and cloudy, often with dried oregano. It is the standard finish for grilled fish, and for horta, the boiled greens eaten all over Greece. The vinegar version of the same idea, ladoxido, is what dresses a village salad; the two differ only in the acid.
Which oregano is right for Greek salad dressing?
Dried Greek oregano — sold as rigani, often still on the branch — and dried is not the compromise here but the point: drying concentrates the resinous, savoury character that stands up to raw onion and vinegar, where fresh oregano leaves taste mild and grassy. Crumble it between your fingers as it goes in to wake the aroma. Mediterranean oregano from any good spice shelf comes close; a fresh sprig does not.
Can you add honey to a Greek salad dressing?
Not to a horiatiki — no Greek village salad is sweetened — but half a teaspoon of honey stirred into the vinegar before the oil goes in turns this into a honey vinaigrette that belongs on bitter leaves, and a thyme honey keeps the accent Greek. Call it an adaptation, not a tradition: the classic bowl takes oil, vinegar, oregano and salt, and nothing else.